


Brightest Star

by LessonsFromMoths



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Astronomer - Freeform, Castiel is a star, Dean Has Panic Attacks, Dean is also a first grade teacher, M/M, Solar System, dean is in love, i promise this is a cute fic, thats adorable okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 02:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4042744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LessonsFromMoths/pseuds/LessonsFromMoths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is a first grade teacher and an astronomer every Wednesday. Dean is constantly finding himself lonely, isolated by the life he has created for himself. When he discovers a new cluster of stars, he finds himself fascinated with the brightest, bluest one of the bunch. He can't stop staring until one day, it just disappears...  (Destiel AU) </p><p> </p><p>*DISCLAIMER: I GOT THIS PROMPT OFF OF TUMBLR. I DO NOT OWN THE IDEA, SUPERNATURAL, OR ITS CHARACTERS. I DO, HOWEVER, OWN THE PLOT.*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brightest Star

In between bites of his hamburger, Dean looks back into the telescope. It has some special name, named after some special astronomers, but Dean can't remember them now. All he knows is that this cluster of stars, this opening to what might be another galaxy, is one of the proudest findings Dean Winchester has ever made. He knows he never seems to stop looking, but for fuck's sake he'll be damned if he isn't going to spend all of his lunch break just staring up at it with the large, stargazing telescope they keep in the center of the entire observatory

"Hey Winchester, mind if I borrow the telescope? Singer's got me lookin' into a potential asteroid problem, gonna need the Heeley-Davids for this one." One of Dean's long-time co-workers and friends, Benny, gestures towards the huge telescope. This telescope is actually so big, it extends from the roof of their domed observatory. "This is the only 'scope with a great camera signal to our satellites." 

Dean nods quickly, rolling backwards in his desk chair and moving far out of the way. "No problem Benny. Call if you need anything. I'll be monitoring the EM spectrums of the new cluster." 

Benny stops and turns to Dean with a smile on his face. "Oh yeah, I heard about your discovery. Congrats, man! You'll go down in history and all the astronomy books with your little part of the solar system." Benny spreads his hands out in front of him in a tall, wide gesture. "The Winchester cluster," He says grandly. "I like it." His smile is big and friendly, but he doesn't wait for Dean to respond before getting back to work. Dean isn't offended, though: Benny always ends the conversation whenever he sees fit, and you either had to deal with it or get out of his way. 

Dean turns away from his old friend, rubbing his face before pulling up the satellite images of his cluster. He stares at his computer screen, mesmerized. Dean's never been credited with actually finding anything before, and now that he has, he can't get over how much he loves it. He actually loves this cluster of stars. 

He hasn't named them, but he suspects that they will be called just as Benny had described: The Winchester Cluster. 

As Dean continues to study the cluster through the many different satellite image angles, he finds that there are actually clusters inside of the big one, each tiny cluster of stars an obviously different EM from the others. He takes out a piece of paper and begins to label his star clusters. "N" for north, "S" for south, "E" for east, and "W" for west. He looks at the EM scale, able to tell some stars' EM just from glancing, but others would need a more detailed description on the spectrum. 

Dean begins recording his findings, putting a little 700 next to N, 550 for W, 607 for E, and 400 for S. Dean looks back at the satellite pictures, pausing for a moment. "Uh, Ellen?" He calls to the hardworking research scientist who sits a few feet from him. "Could you, by chance, help me with a little classification?" 

"Sure Dean," her twangy voice says as she struts over. "Whadd'ya need?" 

"This star, right here." He points to almost the exact center of his cluster. "What would you rate that on the EM scale?" 

Ellen squints at it, leaning forward and humming with concentration. "Past 450, but not quite 475." She says absent-mindedly. She clicks her tongue a few times and then stands back up. "Solid 465." 

Dean smiles at her. "Thanks, Ellen." 

"No problem Dean." She says, but her back is already turned as she goes back to her own station. 

Dean lounges back in his chair, adding a C for center to his list and scribbling a 465 beside it. Then he just stares at the images, his eyes finding his little 465 star. The energy waves coming off of it were much stronger than the others around it. 

"Alright, that's a wrap for today!" The head astronomer of the lab, Dr. Campbell, claps his hands together from the balcony, looking down at his seven researchers. "Go home, get some sleep, do whatever you do when you're not here, and I'll see you back next Wednesday." 

The part-time astronomers pack up, all of them wishing each other safe drives home. As Dean waves goodbye to Benny, he ducks into his car: a beautiful '67 Chevy Impala. His pride and joy. She's a gas guzzler, but Dean decides that he doesn't mind much because his dad gave her to him before he died and she's such a beaut. 

Dean drives down the mountainside, groaning as he already dreads the trip back up next week. If he worked there full-time he would most definitely move closer, but Dean only works one day a week, as do all the rest of those who work with him. The rest of the time he's a first grade teacher, letting his student intern fill in for him on days he's at the lab. 

When Dean finally makes it home two hours later, he walks up the five flights of stairs to the top floor of the building, where his apartment is. The boring cream paint on the walls of his apartment seem to be peeling more than ever tonight, and Dean can do nothing but sigh at them. 

He pulls off his work pants, shrugging his jacket to the floor. In his boxers and nice-fitting sweater, Dean goes back out to the kitchen and begins to make the bacon that's been sitting in his fridge for way too long. He thinks about his brother, Sam, and how he'd shake his head at Dean's dinner choice. It makes Dean smile at the thought. But then again, he always smiles at the thought of Sam. 

Sam, his young and successful brother. He's barely 26 and is already an amazing doctor, currently in California training under one of the best surgeons in the world. He's still attending Stanford for his pHd, but he's top in his class and almost guaranteed a perfect future.

Dean knows Sam is already well on his way to a perfect future. His first girlfriend in California, Jessica, had died in a tragic house fire mere days before Sam was going to propose, but he had informed Dean that he wouldn't make that mistake again. Once he began dating Madison, he asked her to marry him within the first year and now they were engaged, planning their marriage. 

Dean can't stop thinking about how much he misses Sammy, the little boy he pretty much raised in motel rooms because of their father's unstable jobs. He misses Sam's companionship, misses his laughs and his pranks. Even though Dean's never had a home before, he feels homesick. 

He sits at one of the four dark mahogany chairs at his tiny mahogany dinner table. His kitchen cabinets—made with the same mahogany-colored wood—seem to collapse onto him, and suddenly Dean can't breathe and all he can feel is the pressure on his chest, making his ribs crack and heart squish until it takes over his lungs, crushing them. Dean falls to his knees, holding in his pain, scolding himself for being such a baby about missing his father, about missing Sam. 

But Sammy is the only home he's ever known, and all of these years without him makes Dean sick to his stomach. 

To keep from throwing up, Dean stands up and slips on his boots. He throws the sizzling bacon out the window and turns off the stove. He grabs his keys to the impala and leaves his apartment, jumping down the stairs and not bothering with a coat. He should be freezing as he revs up the car, but instead is numb as he drives further into town. 

Dean's hands start leading his steering wheel towards the bar, where he usually goes when he misses Sammy, but instead he takes a different street. He's mindlessly driving until he finally makes it to his destination: the hardware store. 

He walks in, his mind feeling blank as he wanders aimlessly on his mission, browsing the aisles. He can feel eyes on him, and he finally realizes that he's still in only boxers, a red sweater, black socks, and boots. He sees the employees eyeing him uncertainly, but no one approaches him. Dean decides to ignore them. 

Finally, Dean finds what he's looking for, and now that he's here he helplessly stares at the endless shelves of paint cans, unsure. "You look like you need some help." He hears, and Dean whips around to see a lanky, very skinny, funny-looking man with big ears and a big nose. The man is looking at him kindly, with a friendly glint in his eyes. 

"Are you painting a big room?" The man asks, and his name tag reads "Garth". 

Dean licks his lips and nods. "My entire apartment." He says. 

"Well, do you know what you're looking for? Any colors in mind?" 

Dean looks down at his sweater and comes up with his idea. "Maroon." 

"Maroon?" Garth asks. "Like your sweater?" Dean nods. "Alrightie then, I'd suggest this." Garth leans over and grabs five cans of the paint. He piles them in a cart and gives it to Dean. "Follow me and I'll get you the other things you'll need." 

Dean nods dumbly and follows Garth, pushing the cart. As he tosses rollers and paintbrushes into the cart, Garth keeps talking about topics that keep going in one of Dean's ears and out the other. Dean focuses on the speckled floors that remind him of robins' eggs. "Well friend, I think you're all set. Good luck, okay?" Garth tells Dean, and with surprise Dean realizes that Garth already has him bagged and paid for. 

Dean thanks him softly and pushes the cart back to his car. It's dark and only street lights illuminate his actions as he piles his merchandise in his large trunk. He leaves the cart in the parking space next to him and gets in his car to drive back. 

Once he gets to his apartment, Dean carries everything up in two trips, collapsing back in that same kitchen chair from earlier. His attention is brought to his front door, which he left thrown open. For some reason, this makes Dean smile, and he throws open every window in his apartment, letting the freezing air nip at him. 

He's always loneliest the day before Christmas Eve.

He ignores the ache in his chest and opens one of the paint cans with a screwdriver he finds in his miscellaneous kitchen drawer. He goes to his bed, rips off the gray sheet, and lays it out on the floor. He then pours the paint into one of the few trays laid on the sheet. 

He unwraps the new rollers and dips them in the paint, feeling no remorse as he begins to paint over the ugly, peeling cream color. He's in such a rhythm that it's a few minutes until he realizes that he's painted over all of his picture frames still attached to the walls. This wakes him up, and Dean startles, realizing that he's freezing. 

He drops the paint roller, quickly taking down his framed pictures and setting them on his table to dry. It's pointless to try and salvage the frames, so Dean doesn't try. He goes around closing all the windows and closing doors he had opened a mere twenty minutes before. Dean stops in his room and takes off his sweater, leaving a white undershirt to finish painting in. 

He goes out to the living room and picks up his fallen roller to continue. It's 3am when he finally finishes, and he still has two paint cans left over. When he studies the leftover cans Dean realizes that these are actually not maroon like the others, instead being a shiny black. 

Dean gets an idea, but decides to wait. Now isn't the time. 

With the smell of fresh paint invading his home, Dean passes out on his couch, a thin blanket clutched in his fists.  
.  
.  
.  
Christmas Eve.

Dean can't help but feel a little excited because Christmas Eve was always the best day of the year for his little family. His father was never called into work and him and Sammy would get to eat waffles from McDonald's. Christmas Eve held most of his fondest memories, so he has no hate for this day. It's Christmas Day that really gets to him. But today hasn't been ruined yet, so Dean turns his thoughts away from that. 

It's 10am when Dean gets his seasonly call from Sam. "Dean!" He hears over the tone. 

"Sammy," he smiles into the phone, glad to hear his brother's voice. "How ya doin'?" 

"Great, really great," Sam says, and Dean can tell that he means it. "What about you? You're sounding tired, dude." 

"It's a long drive back from the observatory." Dean says, brushing it off in a slightly clipped tone. "And you're not sounding too rested up yourself, bro," Dean turns the conversation around, praying for a subject change. 

"Yeah, been busy with wedding plans." Sam jumps into an enthusiastic spiel about what him and Madison are planning, and Dean listens contently, a smile on his face. Dean leans against his mahogany table, admiring his new wall color. He nods approvingly. Sleep-deprived Dean makes great interior design decisions. 

"So what about you?" Sam asks. "What's new?" 

"Uh, not much. I'm just your boring brother." Dean says easily. 

"Liar!" Sam laughs, and if he were there, Dean knows that Sam would've punched him playfully. "I heard about your big find." 

Dean chuckles. "Yeah, you're talking about the stars." 

"Of course I'm talking about the stars, man! You get your legacy carved in the galaxy! How does it feel?" 

Sam honestly sounds excited for him, and Dean can't help but feel a bit thrilled as he tells his brother about his accomplishment. "It feels kind of...awesome." 

"Of course it does! It's very awesome!" There's a beat of silence and then Sam talks fast. "Sorry Dean, but we've got to go. Spending Christmas Eve with Madison's family. Talk to you soon, alright?" 

And even though Dean wants nothing more than to keep talking with Sammy, even though Dean knows that he won't get that next phone call until his birthday in late January, he says a quick "Alright. Bye, Sammy," and listens as Sam hangs up. 

Dean holds the phone in his hand, listening to the dial tone and staring out his window at busy Chicago. 

He is alone. Again. 

So to get his mind off of it Dean pulls on his coat, grabs his wallet, and walks down the stairs to the outdoors to join the frantic late Christmas shoppers.  
.  
.  
.  
Ten hours later, Dean is back in his apartment, gazing down at the blinking city lights. When he looks up and doesn't see the stars twinkling, he groans in frustration. He needs to see the stars, he needs to see his stars.

So for the second time today, he runs away.  
.  
.  
.  
After driving on the interstate for about thirty minutes, he's far enough away that he can finally see the stars again. He sets up the stargazing telescope he keeps in his backseat, using a large, open field as his makeshift observatory. He's sitting on top of his car as he looks through his telescope, adjusting the coordinate planes so it's aimed right at his cluster. 

As Dean looks, he can't help but keep staring at the gorgeous blue one in the middle, slightly positioned to the left of the immediate center. It twinkles and he swears he sees it move a little. It's still the brightest star in his cluster, still the only thing he wants to look at. The one beautiful thing he can actually call his.

Dean stays out until his nose is numb and he can't feel his hands.  
.  
.  
.  
Christmas Day. 

Dean looks at his clock, rubs his face tiredly, and goes straight back to sleep.  
.  
.  
.  
He wakes up again at around 6pm, and he immediately packs up his things and a burger and drives back out to the field. This time there's a blanket of snow covering everything, but Dean doesn't feel the cold on his skin. 

But as he looks back up at his star, his EM 465, the icy winter inside his heart slowly begins to melt into spring.  
.  
.  
.  
It's New Year's Eve and Dean is at a bar, half-assing his flirting attempts at the desperate ladies, the girls who just don't want to be alone when the calendar restarts. But as Dean is sharing a shot with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, he can't stop looking into her eyes and becoming disappointed that they aren't that one blue star, his one blue star. 

After the shot he pays for one more beer, bids the bar goodbye, and makes his way back to his apartment. By the time the countdown is finished and the ball is dropping, Dean is left to drink alone. 

And there's no one to blame but himself.  
.  
.  
.  
It's a relief when he can finally return to school. He greets his first graders with a wide smile and story time, letting them frolic on the playground longer than normal. Seeing them jump around in their huge marshmallow coats is like some kind of medicine, and Dean can't get enough of it. 

During their lunch break he flirts with the young and pretty third grade teacher, Miss Harvelle; after class he jokes with the quirky librarian, Charlie Bradbury; and while the teachers bitch about their pay checks Dean complains about the teachers with the principal, Mr. Crowley. 

But at the end of the day, when Dean has to go back to an empty home, he feels the hand of loneliness once again. So once again, he packs up his Impala and drives out to the field. He can't stop looking, can't get enough of his gorgeous star. He has something to call his, something to call home. The first thing since Sammy. 

And he doesn't want to let that go.  
.  
.  
.  
It's a Friday night, and Dean is looking through his telescope, frantically rechecking his coordinates and sweeping the skies with his naked eye. Something is wrong. Something is definitely wrong. 

Dean's trying not to freak out, but it's hard not to when his star, his beautiful 465, is missing. He knows he's not just skimming past it because he can find his cluster—but for some reason, his blue star is gone. 

Dean searches for another hour, desperately hoping that it might be out there somewhere. But he's soon forced to leave, the cold finally getting to him. He spends the whole ride thinking about it, about his gorgeous, disappearing star. He hates how he feels about it and the fact that its disappearing act has left a hole in his chest. It was a star for god's sake. He shouldn't be feeling so awful. 

Once he gets home, he can think of only one thing to do to get this sick feeling out of his stomach. He blares some music, settling on his old cassette tapes, and begins by dragging out the two cans of black paint. He grabs one of his chairs and starts doing something he knows he'll be called insane for: he begins to paint his ceiling. 

When all of his ceiling is painted black, he grabs some extra acrylic paint that he has left over from one girlfriend or another, still stuck under his miscellaneous cabinet. He uses the white to speckle the ceiling with constellations, using his memory to create it all. He uses a muted blue for O'Ryan's Belt, which is now stationed over Dean's kitchen. 

The Milky Way takes up the entire hallway to his bedroom, and once he gets in through the door, the moment of truth has arrived. Dean stands on his bed, using red and purple and green for the stars in his little cluster, enjoying the space he has to work with. This made-up constellation is bigger in scale than the others. The space he leaves right in the middle burns into his brain, and he quickly goes to grab a paper plate, mixing blue with white until he comes up with the perfect shade of blue. 

He reaches up and slowly, gently begins to paint his star, his 465. Dean wishes that he has another name for it, but nothing comes to mind when he thinks of the gorgeous blue. 

As he steps down from the bed, he goes to wash out his tiny brushes, putting away the paint bottles and closing up the leftover black paint. Since he doesn't remember each and every constellation, Dean leaves the white paint out. He'll come back to it when he has the energy to look it up online. He's just about to change out of his paint clothes when there's a brisk knocking at his door. 

Dean checks the time, and groans when the clock reads 4am. He hasn't slept in over 24 hours, and who the hell decides to bother him at 4 in the morning? 

Dean trudges to the door, suddenly dead tired, and throws it open. "It's freaking 4 AM," he says tiredly. "What the hell do you—" 

He cuts off, finally looking up at his visitor. It's a man—a dark-haired, beige trench coat-clad man—who's about his height and definitely good-looking. But the thing that really gets Dean is this stranger's eyes. 

They're the same damn shade of blue as his missing 465. 

"Hello." The man cocks his head. 

"H-hello." Dean stutters out. 

"You're the one who has been staring at me, yes? I...I've been told by my brothers that this is a sign of deep affection." 

His voice is deep and throaty, rough around the edges but somehow smooth. "I...I...." Dean's at a loss for words. What do you say when your star has somehow fallen from the sky and shows up knocking at your door? "How'd you get here?" He settles for. 

"I fell. Is this not what true lovers do for each other?" 

Dean is speechless. Is this guy for real? "Who...who are you?" Dean feels really stupid around this guy, and he's already uncomfortable with the interaction (but fuck, was this guy hot and mysterious). 

"I am Castiel." 

Dean can't stop staring into this guy's eyes. It's surreal to be able to see his star in a human form, right in front of him. "Do you...do you want to come inside?" Dean extends a tentative hand towards the being. Castiel nods, and Dean's feeling an odd excitement overcome him. "So...how well do you know the constellations?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! You all mean so much!


End file.
